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Friday, February 1, 2013 - 3

The ichganDaiy -micigadaiycomFriayFebuar 1,201I-I

An Egyptian protester flashes the victory sign during clashes with riot police near Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian
police have over the past week used excessive and often deadly force against protesters across much of the country.
Egyptian leaders call for
calm after deadly protests

Police resort the attendees said. "Abiding
by peaceful political means
to Mubarak-era ... abiding by the serious dia-
logue," it said.
tactics to suppress It was the first meeting
between the Muslim Broth-
and control crowds erhood and the opposition
National Salvation Front since
CAIRO (AP) - Represen- the front was formed in Novem-
tatives from across Egypt's ber.
political spectrum held a rare The meeting sparked angry
meeting Thursday to denounce reaction from activists and
violence, hours before a fresh youth groups who accused the
call for a new wave of mass liberal opposition of making
protests across the country political compromises despite
aimed at pressuring Islamist bloodshed. Security forces
President Mohammed Morsi continued to clash with rock-
to accept opposition demands throwing protesters in down-
to form a national government town Cairo for the eighth day.
and amend the constitution. And Egyptian authorities con-
Hosted by Egypt's premier tinued a wave of arrests and
Islamic institution, Al-Azhar, kidnappings of protesters,
the country's two rival fac- including members of the Black
tions of Islamists and secular- Bloc who wear black masks and
leaning opposition grouping vow to "defend the revolution"
The National Salvation Front from Islamists. Hundreds of
pledged to work on halting vio- protesters were arrested over
lence. The meeting followed a the past week.
week of political rioting that In one latest incident, the
exploded across the country liberal Popular Current party
and left up to 60 people dead. accused security forces of
Egypt's Muslim Brother- abducting and torturing one
hood and the ultraconserva- of its members, Mohammed
tive Salafis along with their el-Gendi, who disappeared for
rival liberal parties vowed to four days before showing up
condemn the instigation of vio- in a Cairo hospital in a serious
lence, prohibit it and differenti- condition.
ate between a "political act and "This is premeditated and
sabotage." signals a return of old prac-
"Denouncing violence in all tices of abductions, torture
its forms and shapes, condemn- and assault," the party said in a
log it clearly and decisively, statement.
criminalizing it nationally, Security forces were not
and prohibiting it religious- available for comment.
ly," a statement signed by all Hussein Abdel-Ghani, a

member of the front, denied
that the opposition was mak-
ing compromises but said, "the
youth defeated the Mubarak
state with their bare chests....
Peaceful means are among the
revolution principles." Howev-
er, he stressed that there would
be no dialogue unless Morsi
ordered security authorities
not to use violence with pro-
testers.
"No dialogue before the
bloodshed stops," he said.
Police abuse and maltreat-
ment were among the reasons
that sparked the country's 2011
uprising.
The Islamists-liberals meet-
ing also comes ahead of a fresh
wave of mass protests expected
across the country and at the
presidential palace. In a new
statement, the National Salva-
tion Front called upon Egyp-
tians to express "firm rejection
to a regime that insists on
imposing its singular will on
the people and to administer
the country to serve the inter-
est of the Muslim Brotherhood
group."
The front reiterated a list of
demands including setting up
a nationally unified govern-
ment and rewriting controver-
sial parts of the constitution
in addition to investigating the
latest deaths.
Morsi rejected calls for
forming a new government, in
remarks he delivered during a
news conference with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel dur-
ing his short visit to Berlin.

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7

Chinese hackers probed The New
York Times' computers since Sept.

Hackers look
for reporters'
passwords, files on
top Chinese leader
BEIJING (AP) - Chinese
hackers repeatedly penetrated
The New York Times' com-
puter systems over the past
four months, stealing report-
ers' passwords and hunting for
files on an investigation into
the wealth amassed by the fam-
ily of a top Chinese leader, the
newspaper reported Thursday.
Security experts hired to
investigate and plug the breach
found that the attacks used
tactics similar to ones used
in previous hacking incidents
traced to China, the report
said. It said the hackers routed
the attacks through computers
at U.S. universities, installed a
strain of malicious software,
or malware, associated with
Chinese hackers and initiated
the attacks from Chinese uni-
versity computers previously
used by the Chinese military
to attack U.S. military contrac-
tors.
The attacks, which began
in mid-September, coincided
with a Times investigation into
how the relatives and family
of Premier Wen Jiabao built a
fortune worth over $2 billion.
The report, which was posted
online Oct. 25, embarrassed the
Communist Party leadership,
coming ahead of a fraught tran-
sition to new leaders and expos-
ing deep-seated favoritism at a

time when many Chinese are
upset about a wealth gap.
Over the months of cyber-
incursions, the hackers even-
tually lifted the computer
passwords of all Times employ-
ees and used them to get into
the personal computers of 53
employees.
The report said none of the
Times' customer data was com-
promised and that information
about the investigation into the
Wen family remained protect-
ed, though it left unclear what
data or ,communications the.
infiltrators accessed.
"Computer security experts
found no evidence that sensi-
tive emails or files from the
reporting of our articles about
the Wen family were accessed,
downloaded or copied," the
report quoted executive edi-
tor Jill Abramson as saying. A
Times spokeswoman declined
to comment further.
The Chinese foreign and
defense ministries called the
Times' allegations baseless, and
the Defense Ministry denied any
involvement by the military.
"Chinese law forbids hack-
ing and any other actions that
damage Internet security,"
the Defense Ministry said in
a statement. "The Chinese
military has never supported
any hacking activities. Cyber-
attacks are characterized by
being cross-national and anon-
ymous. To accuse the Chinese
military of launching cyber-
attacks without firm evidence
is not professional and also
groundless."
China has been accused by

the U.S., other foreign govern-
ments and computer security
experts of mounting a wide-
spread, aggressive cyber-spy-
ing campaign for several years,
trying to steal classified infor-
mation and corporate secrets
and to intimidate critics. For-
eign reporters and news media,
including The Associated Press,
have been among the targets of
attacks intended to uncover the
identities of sources for news
stories and to stifle critical
reports about the Chinese gov-
ernment.
"Attacks on journalists
based in China are increas-
ingly aggressive, disruptive and
sophisticated," said Greg Wal-
ton, a cyber-securityresearcher
who has tracked Chinese hack-
ing campaigns. China's cyber-
spying efforts have excelled
in part because of the govern-
ment's "willingness to ignore
international norms relating to
civil society and media organi-
zations," he said.
The Times reported that
executives became concerned
just before the publication of
the Wen investigation after
learning that Chinese officials
had warned of unspecified con-
sequences. Soon after the Oct.
25 publication, AT&T, which
monitors the Times' computer
networks, notified the company
about activity consistent with a
hacking attack, the report said.
After months of investiga-
tion by the computer security
firm Mandiant, experts are still
unsure how the hackers initial-
ly infiltrated the Times' com-
puter systems, the report said.

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